1/ The Government of Canada should make a pandemic management app before the private sector does, so we can make sure the data indeed remains private (this is assuming we can trust the government on that front, which admittedly is one helluva leap of faith in 2020)...
2/ An app like this could be an extremely effective tool in helping to beat the 🦠, the catch being that more effective the tool, the more personal data users would have to provide.
3/ examples: An app tracking location of users could help significantly with tracing, alerting other users if they have been in the close vicinity of someone who fell ill in recent days...
4/ The app could also offer up diagnostic screening based on questionnaire and provide links and updated information to users based on their location, and potentially help with tracing if users’ contacts were shared with public health authorities...
5/ I would hope such a thing would be voluntary and provide mostly anonymized data (hence whoever puts it together would need strong public oversight). Ironically this is the kind of personal info many of us provide to large corporations all the time (Google, Amazon, Apple, etc.)
6/ Seen examples from China of phone data like this being used by authorities to track (and punish) people defying quarantine. Political leaders here have expressed reluctance about that level of surveillance - but if the 🥕 method doesn’t show results, we know stick will come.😬
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1) The thread noted a divide between what I called “accelerationists” who were sounding alarm that 2023’s remarkable warming was the beginning of SOMETHING NEW, and those I (later) called “observationalists”, who claimed 2023’s extreme warmth fits within EXPECTED WARMING trends.
2) These positions continue to be expressed. @MichaelEMann, for instance, is adamant that “the truth [about global warming] is bad enough”; that the warming we saw in 2023 can be explained by known climate physics; and that 2023 fits within the modelled warming.
This post by @FoodProfessor claims that the Trudeau Government purposely built the @ClimateInstit and @SP_Inst as part of its "lobbying machine" and that they are "mandated to advocate blindly" for the carbon tax.
This is a baseless claim.
Thread...🧵
1) This story starts in 1988 when the Mulroney government created an Independent advisory council of experts called the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy. For 25 years it produced numerous reports on environmental policy, advising governments.
2) Then in 2013 the Harper government cancelled the NREE's funding because it did not like the advice it was receiving (in particular regarding carbon pricing). News story about it here: cbc.ca/news/politics/…
I don't know if the left has ever been unified, but today there seems to be a massive and growing rift about the environment - and especially climate - amongst socialists.
I now worry these differences are irreconcilable...
2. The discord seems to come down to fundamentally different worldviews shaping interpretations and definitions of modernity, development, progress, capitalism, justice, Marx's intentions, strategy, the future...
Many people seem absolutely fed up with "the other side". FED. UP.
3. The Degrowth Left (and this is sure to be a caricature of 'the ideology', not thinking of any one individual) seems FED UP with what it believes Ecomodern Socialism is: a sort of capitalism-as-usual in disguise...
It's worth emphasizing that because the scheduled carbon tax rate increase is flat ($15/tonne/year through to 2030), the *relative* weight increase declines over time.
There's a few ways that the carbon tax increase may *feel* less consequential as time goes on. Mini 🧵
First, as Chris has pointed out, this year it's a 23% increase on the tax rate relative to last year. But next year it will be an 18.75% increase and so on until it just stays fixed at $170/tonne - no longer increasing any more, year after year...
Second, due to inflation, the relative weight of an increase could also decline.
Ex: Currently the tax *increase* adds about 3.3c per litre ($17.6c/L). A 50L tank of gas has $8.80 tax. If the avg pre-tax gas price goes up, the relative size of the tax increase per tank declines.
Here's the abridged story of how NEOLIBERALISM became dominant (as I understand it). This is also a story with CLIMATE implications.
I draw on works by Harvey, Klein, Helleiner, Ruggie, and others.
(Keen to hear amendments, additions, critiques from fellow political economists)
1) It's 1944 and the soon-to-be victors of WWII gather at Bretton Woods to design the Post-War global economy. They develop an international monetary system largely seeking stability; one that fosters cooperation and prosperity through international trade and growth.
2) This model of 'embedded liberalism' sought a balance between what was seen as volatile laissez-faire market capitalism on one hand, and protectionist (even authoritarian) state interventionism on the other. In domestic terms, it lent itself to Keynesian 'demand-side' policies.
1. Speaking of tipping points: I believe the world has recently tipped into the early stages of one of the most profound transformations humanity has ever endured. It will take place over the next 50 years or so.
🧵on this fascinating and terrifying time to be alive!
2. The transformation is being ushered in by major demographic, technological, and ecological changes. These are mutually-reinforcing in some ways, making the transformation feel lightning fast (in human terms). The late 21st Century will look fundamentally different from today.
3. First, two demographic shifts which are profoundly consequential: i) Global population will for the first time in human history peak and *trend* downward (the rate of growth already peaked years ago) ii) the shift from a mostly-rural to mostly-urban population continues.